India, “a dynamic market growing rapidly”, is a long-term commitment for Adyen

Indian businesses have been expanding to overseas markets, while the lure of the country’s thriving market space is pulling in global businesses. The way this cross-border trade is done has evolved, with payments becoming closely tied to aspects including customer experience, localisation, regulatory compliance, market access, and more. Besides, artificial intelligence is also altering how consumers interact with businesses.

This shift is shaping the India strategy for Adyen, the global financial technology platform. The company, operating in India for the last seven years, sees the country as a major, vibrant market as well as a bridge between businesses with overseas ambitions.

“India is such an incredibly dynamic market. It is a huge market, and second, it is growing at a rapid clip.” Gary Yang, President, APAC at Adyen, said in a conversation with The Economic Times on the sidelines of the recently concluded Global Fintech Fest 2026 in Mumbai. He was accompanied by Aditya Khullar, Managing Director, India, as they discussed the company's India journey, its cross-border proposition and the emerging role of AI in payments.


“The amount of innovation that has been going on here, the rise of UPI, and financial inclusion makes India an incredibly exciting place to be,” Yang said.

Adyen, the two of them explained during the conversation, has its focus on merging global payment infrastructure with local capabilities, for Indian businesses trying to expand overseas as well as for global companies looking to enter India. The company has also built a universal translator that supports multiple emerging agentic commerce protocols to prepare merchants and individuals for a future where AI agents are trusted enough to carry out transactions.

Merging the global into local:

Khullar terms his tenure at Adyen as the “most fulfilling chapter of his career”, given the way Adyen has been working towards localising its global platform, and making the global capabilities work for India’s local needs.

“For me, it's really about how we've localized our platform. It's the licenses we've got, and it's our lineup of stars, our team,” he said.

The perfect example of what Khullar said is that the company’s local acquiring solution would allow businesses to accept payments in Indian currency, and through UPI, Rupay, as well as global card schemes, that too through its single platform.

“This ability to combine global infrastructure with local payment methods is central to Adyen's proposition,” Khullar said, “What that really allows us to do is, while we're a global company, we almost act as a local company.”

This positioning by Adyen becomes all the more relevant in the context of global companies venturing into Indian markets, and the fact that the payment behaviour in this country as well as the regulatory environment are significantly more diverse than other overseas markets.

Yang, agreeing with what Khullar had to say, maintained that Adyen’s core approach is to combine its global platform with local market expertise.

“We have our global platform, but we also think it's really important to be deep locally, to really understand the nuances of the regulatory environment, the customer behavior, and all these things to make sure we help companies optimise,” he said.

The flip side: helping Indian businesses go global

Apart from merging the global platform with local expertise, in sync with the local payment behaviour in India, Adyen is also helping Indian businesses with global ambitions to navigate not only payments but regulatory bottlenecks as well.

Khullar explained that Adyen is taking away the complexity of expanding to overseas markets for Indian businesses, with a process that can introduce multiple payment methods, jurisdictions, licences, and operational requirements.

“If you think about it, if you're an Indian company here, you're probably working with one or two providers, right? But when you suddenly go international, you're looking at four or five different countries,” Khullar said. “You're looking at different jurisdictions, different licenses. So the complexity that brings as an Indian company going out, Adyen takes all of that away for you.”

Adyen allows businesses to access multiple payment methods in different markets, without the prerequisite of building a separate payment infrastructure, geography-wise. He spoke about Adyen’s work with Oyo (now Prism) to drive home the point.

“Essentially, Ritesh (the Oyo CEO and founder) was very clear that they need a partner like Adyen to truly help them succeed globally, and take all the barriers to entry out of it,” he said, recounting Ritesh’s discussions during a mainstage event at the GFF, with Adyen CCO Roelant Prins.

The India opportunity, hence, for Adyen is two-pronged. They are helping Indian businesses expand overseas as well as global companies to venture into India. Yang summed it all up with, “We see India as a long-term investment. It's why we've been here, why we started here so long ago, why we're here today, and why we're going to continue to be here.”

A global outlook:

Adyen’s efforts to make payments seamless for global companies in India also translate into a better integration/understanding of the local payments infrastructure, bringing UPI to a pivot position.

For Adyen, in particular, UPI has become central to their operations in India. They have integrated UPI into their single global platform, and are allowing global customers entering India to access UPI from the outset.

“What excites us the most about something like UPI is that when our global customers want to come into India, we provide it to them from day one,” Khullar said, adding, “I think it's fantastic, firstly, as an Indian, but also somebody who's in the FinTech business, of what the regulators and also the industry at large has done with UPI over the last 10 years, being one of the biggest digital payment methods out there.”

Bracing for agentic commerce:

Adyen is not stopping at making payments easier for Indian and global merchants, outside and in India; it is also working towards closing the gaps that are preventing the realisation of agentic commerce-a theme that was extensively discussed across forums at the Global Fintech Fest.

The industry leaders are envisioning a future where AI agents are capable and trusted enough to play a significant role not only in purchasing decisions, but also in executing transactions for merchants as well as individuals.

Yang, speaking to The Economic Times, asserted that Adyen's research points towards a significant gap between product discovery by AI agents and AI-led transactions.

“70% of consumersuse AI to research things before they purchase, but very, very, very few of them actually use it to complete the transaction.” Yang said, adding that the challenge was not developing better AI models but connecting the fragmented infrastructure: “There's a whole industry kind of ecosystem infrastructure problem, because the data for everything exists in different places.”

Yang informed that Adyen has built a “universal translator” to connect three parts of the ecosystem, including inventory, shopping cart, and checkout, with the core idea of allowing the AI agent to identify these layers and be able to complete the payment without any human intervention.

The work on developing this infrastructure, and positioning Adyen’s payment platform as a layer for emerging agentic commerce as well, has already begun.

This particular evolution of Adyen is what Khullar explains sets it apart from any conventional payments platform.

“For me, it's all about how Adyen is a growth driver for our merchants. We're not just a payment gateway,” he said, adding that the company's stronghold is an “unmatched convergence” where it brings global infrastructure and local payment methods together, and has teams to help businesses navigate distinct markets.

“The fact that we can help Indian merchants, as Gary said, go international, but then having the right payment methods, the right sort of things that they need to succeed for their business, having teams across the globe that can help them, right, almost act as partners for them.” Khullar maintained.

Khullar asserted that Adyen wants to be in India, given the country is at an intersection where Indian businesses are expanding globally and global players are entering India. The company is banking on the need for a single infrastructure layer capable of connecting global systems to the local markets.